FoxyMaple: the beginning

Early on in the Tour de Fleece, I had trouble with what to spin because I knew I would most certainly underwhelm the potential of any fiber I chose. I had to make decisions based on odd criteria like, Do I definitely love these colours together or are they even remotely iffy for me?  (usually: definitely love.) Can I replace this easily?  (usually: not a chance.)

One easier decision was two exclusive braids from two different segments of the Twisted Fiber Art club:

See how similar they are, in spite of being different?  The lower one is called Foxy, and the one with the hits of green is Maple.  Maple was a particularly huge hit in its club and I bought two more braids of it in a different base, which is why I dared to risk messing with the one shown here. 

My idea: you can only knit so big a project with 100g of yarn.  But if you have 200g, that's a big scarf or shawl and maybe a matching hat or fingerless gloves.  These two colourways looked like they might go together pretty nicely, and if I spun them together right from the beginning, I'd get my 200g of yarn.

My technique: first I tore each colourway into four pieces lengthwise, and set one strip of Foxy over one strip of Maple, carefully matching where I started and stopped because one was a little longer than the other (in the event, the longer, single section was my starting point and made said start soooo much easier.)  Then I coiled them together.

I'd found while spinning something else that fiber in a braid that's been crammed into a confined space with a lot of other fiber gets pretty compressed, making drafting at the wheel a literal pain.  The fix: teasing the fiber open along the width, all the way along its length.

The two colourways didn't get attached to each other at this point - both are superwash which I suppose would make a difference - but they did play nicely together.

The result was delicious.

This really, really makes me think of a cinnamon danish.  I should probably have breakfast so I don't go any further down the path to the bakery. Moving on...

Here is the first of the four, spun up.  Pretty, yes? 

Stay tuned, because next week or so I'll show you what it looks like plied and skeined, bwah ha ha ha ha.